A slave girl's shift is no real barrier against the cold wind that tears across the landscape, slippers no real protection from the knife-edged formations of ice that glinted in the sun. The feel of her hair whipping about her wildly is strange and unsettling, the long tresses almost weightless in the hands of the wind, the familiar weight of her headdress gone, leaving her feeling more naked than even the translucent silk of the shift does.

The Manor looms behind her, rearing up out of the shattered earth, stone amidst ice and snow, black and foreboding. The only sign of civilisation in this barren place. The only hope of shelter. But there is no going back to it, not for her.

Braced against the harsh wind, she takes a step, then another, slowly making her way towards the setting sun. There is no path laid out for her, and the icy ground cuts into her feet. She is leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her long before she reaches her destination. She has stopped shivering by the time the throne comes into view, and her eyelashes are frozen stiff with tears.

But there he is, waiting. Sitting straight and calm on his throne as though the temperature was balmy and the weather amicable. As though the sun were a warming fire rather than a weak, pale flicker of cold light.

Though she cringes at the mere thought of more of her bare flesh touching the frigid ground, she kneels before him, knowing full well that her skin will freeze to the ice within moments, and that to rise again will tear long bloody rents in her once flawless legs.

"You are the famous Oracle? Such a skinny, pale girl." He smiles icily, attempting to seem disdainful and unconcerned, when really his fear and anticipation shine clearly in his eyes. He would not sneer so if he had come to her in her own court, seen her on her own throne, dressed in her ceremonial robes, her hair piled high on her head and woven through with pearls and wires. He did not come to her in her own court, however, and never would. Her fall had been quick but thorough, and no one's fault but her own. So here she is, kneeling at his feet in the cold, feeling the life being leeched from her slender body with each passing minute.

"I am." She has nothing else to say to this man, not yet.

"Tell me my future, Oracle." He laughs, as though he has told a wonderful joke. Confidence floods back into his bearing now, even as she pulls the deck of cards from the single pocket in her simple shift. His will be the last fortune she tells, and well they both know it.

One by one she lays out the cards, and they do not fly away on the powerful wind. They do not even budge. His smile wavers for a moment at this tiny hint of true magic, but his uncertainty does not last long. It is easy to be smug in the face of inscrutable Oracles, when one knows that they will be dead within an hour.

"There is little joy in your past, and much hurt. Harsh words and harsher blows haunt you still, but your fear became your strength, and you rose high." This is not what he wants to hear, but he says nothing. He lets her work.

"You revel now in the power you have over others. You are ever hungry for a new opponent, a new straw man to which you can attach the image of your past tormentors. One by one, they fall, and it means nothing. You remain cold inside, and afraid." No, this is not what he wants to hear at all. He kicks her, sends her frail form flying. The cards still do not scatter, and she continues to speak around a mouthful of blood. The Seeing is on her now, and she will not stop. She will not lie. She will speak the Truth, this final time. This is her penance, and her redemption.

"Shadows you thought long banished and demons you tell yourself never existed at all rise up, and join together. From all quarters, they join against you, in secret, quietly, in places that no mortal can see."

Again and again he hits her, screaming obscenities, his face puffed red with rage. "Who? Who defies me? Where are they?"

"In the hidden spaces. Beneath your very nose, and on the other side of the galaxy. They are many. They have been gathering for a long time. A very long time. Soon, they will find a leader, and he will lead them against you. And you will fall." It's a promise she delivers with a smile, though much of her face is now shapeless red meat and broken white bone.

His anger should be fearful to behold, but she is not afraid. It is too late now for him to change his mind and have her tortured slowly. Darkness will come for her within minutes. Seconds. "Who?" He roars, and blusters, his terror naked for her to see, though he thinks it hidden, always. "Who will lead them?"

Even the howl of the wind falls away, then, the world stilling, hanging on her words. She exhales the message faintly, and it is loud in the unnatural silence. "The King will lead them."

"He is dead! DEAD!" Bits of ice fall to the ground as his shout shatters delicate formations.

The sun sets, and the moons rise. They pull at her, and she lets them. Peace fills her, and pleasure, a dark, bittersweet warmth of satisfaction. She has repaid the debt incurred by her terrible lie, by her betrayal of all that she was. Her last breath, her last words, will set the Truth free, and the Universe will rejoice to hear them. "Oh, but he lives."